Lead Box: The choices are endless

What is a lead box? You’re probably more familiar with the term popup box, which has become an umbrella term for messages that appear on your website, generally with a special offer.

While a popup lightbox is the most popular form of a lead box, the truth is there are lots of options to highlight content on your website and collect leads.

Let’s go through some of your choices.

Popup Lightbox

The most tradition form of lead box, this message popups up to grab the user’s attention.

Popup lightboxes can be triggered a number of ways including:

• Time: The number of seconds a user spends on a particular page. The popup can load immediately, or after a user has spent 15 seconds on your page.
• Scroll: How far down your page the user has scrolled – such as 50%. This can be a good option if you want a user to get to a certain point in your content before they see the offer.
• Exit Intent: One of my favorite features! In this case the popup will not appear until a user makes a move to leave the site. This is your last ditch effort to get their attention.

Sticky Ribbons

This is a message that appears at the top or bottom of a screen. The “ribbon” is usually a colored box that calls attention to the message.

This is a much less obtrusive option than a traditional lightbox because a user can continue to scroll through the page and view content without closing the box.

Slide-In Boxes

Slide-ins act like popup lightboxes in that way that they appear on the screen after a certain about of time. The difference is that these messages tend to be smaller and show in the lower corners of your page. This is another unobtrusive option as a user can continue to view content while the box is on the screen.

In-Line Forms

Used most traditionally on blogs (including this one!), this is a lead box that is embedded within your content. It usually appears in the middle of the page so that a user has a chance to see the value in of your content before you make them a special offer.

Opt-In Widgets

Similar to in-line forms, an opt-in widget is part of your page and doesn’t move. It’s most often used in the side bar of a page or blog to promote opt-ins.

Two-Step Opt-in Form

This lead box depends on a user to take an action, such as clicking a button, before your message box appears. In this option, you are letting your content speak for itself, but simply giving your user a method to opt-in, or contact you, without going to another page.

Scroll Mat

This lead generation box comes from the top and fills the screen, pushing content down. This format has become popular with sites like CNN to showcase ads.

Interstitial

An interstitial is not a message box, but a totally separate page that appears before content. These pages generally feature ads, and can require the user to wait for several seconds before they are allowed to view the content they really want to see. Forbes does this all the time.

Note: Use this choice with caution! Not only will it annoy your users but you could get a penalty from Google.

The nutshell is there are lots of choices for lead generation boxes that help you convert users on your website. You may experiment with several to find out what works best on your website.

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